“The passion and enthusiasm gave me energy”
 

Editor-in-Chief and acting CEO of Cochrane Karla Soares-Weiser was a plenary speaker at the Cochrane Africa Indaba. In an interview she spoke of the inspiration she took from the experience and gave some of her perspectives about the future of evidence synthesis. 

“For me, the beauty of the Indaba was not only what me and others had to offer but what we had to learn. I was sitting in the front row in the storytelling session which challenged us to do things in a different way. That challenge makes us think of how we work as a community. In the world of today nothing is one-directional,” she said.

“It’s not only about content but also about innovation. How do you tell a story to make it more available and accessible to different audiences instead of always focusing on academic products. How do you speak about impact and how do you bring capacity strengthening to the fore?” 

“Cochrane is known for producing high-quality evidence, but the complexity of the questions nowadays demands different types of evidence synthesis. It’s the challenge of keeping the high quality but delivering timely reviews that people can use. These discussions were all part of Indaba and I was very pleased to be part of them. It came from the whole group and their experiences.”

“The passion and the enthusiasm and the number of young people keen to participate was wonderful,” she continued. “I had a very good conversation with a group from Ethiopia who are keen to become involved in Cochrane and their passion and enthusiasm gave me energy.” 

“Before the Indaba we had a Cochrane Africa network [Steering Group] meeting. I’m excited by the amount of innovation, especially in responding to the needs of stakeholders, particularly policy-makers. We should be doing this much more and learning from what is going on already, for example, in the GELA project.” 

“It’s about Cochrane and Cochrane Africa’s role in the future. Today’s landscape is very different from when we started Cochrane and started working on evidence synthesis 30 years ago. We need centres that fit the purpose, that respond rapidly but with high quality, and we need engagement and co-production. These ideas have been taken up by groups in Africa and a lot of leadership comes from people in Cochrane Africa. We can learn as an organisation.”

“The challenge is to bring the innovations, experience and enthusiasm together. There are things we can offer and things other places and cultures can offer and together we can do better.”

Soft power
In her plenary presentation Karla tackled the role of AI. We asked her to share more. 

“AI is the million-dollar question,” she said. “We all know it will make an impact. Across the globe people are looking at ways of utilising AI. We need to do the same. The next few years will see many new tools to facilitate the production of evidence synthesis. It could be a threat or an opportunity. A lot of these will not be tools we would want to endorse. We need responsible use of AI and Cochrane must be a soft leader on this and only endorse tools and systems that support high-quality evidence.”  

In her presentation she used the example of washing machines. “When washing machines were invented, they improved women’s lives – giving them more time to work, study, be with their children or just have fun,” she explained. “When I started doing reviews we went to the library and read articles one by one to assess them. With AI this can already be done with good accuracy for randomised-control trials. We are now cascading this to other kinds of studies. This is already reality and will reduce by at least a third the work it takes to do reviews. That’s an early win. It’s a no brainer.”

“Another area where AI can help is in the plain language summaries – it’s a hard task for academics – and good summaries facilitate translation and making evidence accessible.”

And what else does she see for the future?
Karla highlighted two important developments including an infrastructure-development project funded by the Wellcome Trust. 

“This is a once-in-a-generation opportunity to transform how we produce and use evidence synthesis to tackle societal challenges, including accelerating progress toward the United Nations Sustainable Development Goals,” she explained. “The infrastructure will enable the production of relevant evidence in a timely and more affordable way to better support policy-makers. It brings together people from around the world, across disciplines and sectors, with a shared goal: to make evidence synthesis accessible to policy-makers.” 

She added, “We have a diverse cohort of young people – their contribution is amazing. They are the future leaders. This is also about building sustainable mechanisms for the long term”. 
She also spoke about her involvement in the recent World Health Assembly, where a resolution was passed to strengthen national capacities in evidence-based decision-making.

“That question was at the heart of a powerful discussion where I had the honour of representing Cochrane, alongside WHO Director-General Dr Tedros, Chief Scientist Dr Jeremy Farrar, Gates Foundation President for Global Development Dr Chris Elias, Wellcome Trust Chief of Staff Dr Steven Hoffman, Dr Holger Schünemann, and government representatives from Ethiopia, China and Norway  committed to advancing evidence-informed policy-making,” she said.

“Cochrane has supported this process for some time, and it’s incredible to see it reflected in a formal resolution. We will see growing local efforts to build capacity both to produce and to use evidence synthesis. WHO will be working closely with governments to explore how they — and their partners — can provide meaningful support.”

“I’m very impressed by this resolution and congratulate the WHO for delivering on it.”

“Cochrane is still on a good track and continues to attract new, vibrant people,” she continued. “The challenge to an organisation that has been here for a long time is that we might have ways of doing things that are not what’s needed now.”

“We are also competing with other types of information that are not necessarily evidence based. We must make sure people use evidence by making it accessible. We need to create a core of thinkers who can cascade this process. It’s not about an Ivory Tower – a few people deciding – evidence will only be used if it’s accessible and showcased. This is another area in which Cochrane needs to be a soft leader – explaining why we need evidence and why evidence can save lives.” 

“I left Africa feeling the energy that we felt in the early days of Cochrane – the passion and enthusiasm and the need for what we do. These are drivers and provide the energy I need to do the work.”

“There is a big role for the Cochrane Africa network. We need to listen to the network to understand the best way to deliver evidence in Africa,” she said. “We can’t just expand. It must be expansion with a purpose. I’m keen to be part of the strategic processes within the network. It will be a listening exercise before a decision-making exercise.” 

“When I started working with Cochrane in 1994, we had to justify why we were doing systematic reviews,” she added. “We are now looking at ways to make sure Cochrane’s work is used to save lives. For me this is fascinating.” 

“I’d like to take this opportunity to thank the people at the Indaba for their enthusiasm. Especially the people from KEMRI – they worked hard. It was inspiring to be there and to be able to share experiences.”